The invention is based on a connecting piece for connecting a wiper blade and a wiper arm.
Connecting pieces for connecting the wiper arm to the wiper blade are already known, for instance from European Patent Disclosure EP 0 863 058 A2, but the connecting piece shown there is embodied in multiple parts, so that different adapter parts have to be used for each of the differently sized wiper arms.
The connecting piece of the invention has the advantage over the prior art that because it has elastic regions it has an auto-adaptive nature and thus is usable for many wiper arms of different sizes. It can moreover be produced in one piece, for instance by a injection molding process, which is a substantial advantage upon installation since there is not need first to determine which adapter piece fits the particular end of a wiper arm. This is of particular importance especially because as a rule the installation is done by the vehicle. driver himself, that is, by a layman rather than a professional.
It is especially advantageous if the elastic regions are formed in the form of resilient tabs, since then the connecting piece can be installed without being destroyed on the wiper arm end. Because the resilient tabs have a plurality of stop faces which correspond to differently sized wiper arm ends and which upon installation each automatically move into the correct position, the result is an auto-adaptive characteristic, which makes mistake-free installation substantially easier.
If one region is embodied as a yielding plateau, high torsional stability is obtained, combined with a high dimensional tolerance.
If the yielding nature of the plateau is due to ribs that have an angle of less than 90xc2x0 from the wiper arm, then when the connecting piece is removed from the wiper arm a self-locking effect is brought about, which further enhances the strength of the connection between the wiper arm and the wiper blade.
If the connecting piece is provided with a resilient region for multiple positions that are associated with variously sized wiper arm ends, then it proves to be especially advantageous if in the resilient region, in each of these positions, a bracing action is exerted on the wiper arm by stabilizing elements.
Because for locking the connecting piece to the wiper blade the body or the means for receiving and bracing the wiper blade have elastic projections on which there are protuberances perpendicular to the direction of the wiper arm end, the force for attaching the connecting piece to the wiper arm and removing it from it can be adjusted easily and precisely by means of the size of the protuberances.